


Sleepless Nights & (Not So) Little Delights

by Acxrenal



Category: High Rollers DnD (Web Series)
Genre: Alia is a delight, Alia tries to be comforting but she’s Alia, Also there’s a lot of swearing because Alia, Another ‘Lucius deserves therapy and I will give it to him’ fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I have a strange obsession with describing exact shades of colour, I like to think I’m funny but you be the judge of that, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Inter elf bonding bc they both only get 4 hours of sleep, It’s short but I enjoyed writing it so here you are HR fandom, Please don’t put me in a freezer I don’t know how to tag, You can’t stop me projecting onto Lucius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28118055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acxrenal/pseuds/Acxrenal
Summary: Alia cares more than Lucius believes. She’s just really bad at showing it.
Relationships: Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto & Alia
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	Sleepless Nights & (Not So) Little Delights

Being awake at inconvenient times was both a blessing and a curse for Alia. Having no one around in the caliginosity was useful when she wanted to be alone with her reflections. Trancing was a practised process that had been perfected through generations of war-torn elves who aimed to cut down on time spent sleeping: This knowledge was intrinsic but to her it was fucking annoying. Why couldn’t she just sleep like everyone else and wake up at a normal time?

Aiming to take her mind off the flickers of memory that wouldn’t quite surface, Alia began to make her way towards the kitchens for a midnight snack. Might as well eat something if she couldn’t think, right? The silence of the ship was tangible as she walked across the deck containing the quarters of her fellow crewmates. Passing the captain’s quarters, it was clear that the door had been disturbed but she paid little mind. Lucius was an enigma to her and it would make sense that he was awake at such a time. 

Illuminating the kitchen were soft orbs of light that Alia recognised as Lucius’ Dancing Lights. Cobalt and coral shades highlighted his features as he mindlessly searched through the provisions of the Storm Chaser, evidently unaware of her presence. 

“What’re you doing?”

Although he didn’t react as drastically as she expected, she found it rather amusing to watch Lucius almost stumble into action. 

“Oh, Alia! I’m just grabbing a drink, nothing much. Do you want anything?” 

“Unless you’ve got strong alcohol, not really.”

“I’ve got wine, but that’s about it. We should really stock up on more supplies once we get into town...”

Social interaction really wasn’t her thing but she was wise enough to understand Lucius’ body language. It was painfully obvious that something unspoken was going on. From the dark rings forming under his eyes and even in the coloured light, she could see how sickly he looked. 

“You look like shit,” was all that Alia could muster. What a great conversation starter. 

Lucius took a moment to finish pouring the wine, focusing on the colour of the liquid that sloshed into his mug haphazardly as he formulated a response. A stray light floated over to her so that he could address her properly. 

“Well, it’s quite late and I do feel tired, so I suppose that explains it. Anyway, what are you doing up so late?”

“I was hungry. Look, I’m bad at talking to people so I’m gonna be blunt and get to the point: There’s something wrong and you don’t wanna tell anyone. That’s fine but drinking really late won’t help that.”

“I... appreciate your honesty, Alia,” Lucius trailed off, taking a small sip of wine in order to bridge the silence, “I’m quite frankly not feeling the best but I suppose no one else is. We’ve got many things to attend to with the meeting with all of the leaders, Nova’s collecting of Tiangong shards and Sentry’s Prime thingie, it’s just a lot to think about.”

Alia moved closer, the orange orb following as she did so. Affection was more of Nova’s thing so instead she decided to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder. 

“I think about it like this: One enemy to whack at a time. At the meeting? We’re probably gonna get attacked so we should warn the leaders of that. Nova’s shards? Knowing our luck so far we’ll definitely have to fight someone. Advice isn’t my thing but maybe just think about it one goal at a time.”

Because Lucius gave little response, she decided to continue. “Besides, if you really want to think about the future you can always ask Quill. He’s good at knowing things and Nova’d probably explode with happiness if you asked her about her nerd stuff. You’re not exactly alone in all of this, so if you’re gonna drink you should do it around everyone else. It’s fun!”

There was a moment where Alia thought she’d fucked up. That something she said had triggered a breakdown and that she would have to drag Sentry over to fix whatever stupor she had placed him into. Then Lucius laughed. He laughed and it was something that (for once) she was glad about. Ironically enough, he seemed to gain a little colour from their exchange. Perhaps her sardonic sense of humour was something that he needed when times were rough. 

“Thank you. I do really mean it. Maybe I should reread one of my bookies before everyone else gets up! That’s probably better than drinking..”

“I’ll have the rest of it if you don’t want it,” Alia said, promptly taking the container away from him and quickly drinking the rest before he could mutter out a protest. 

Perhaps it wasn’t the most insightful conversation the two could have had but to Lucius it helped immensely. Although the pain of loss had been overshadowed by how much more important it was for the others to achieve their destinies, maybe it wasn’t so bad for him to take some time off with Alia to drink or even to talk about how he felt.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing Lucius’ personality is really hard for me and I don’t know why because he’s my favourite character. Weird.  
> This is really short but I don’t care, I like it and that’s all that matters. Feel free to leave constructive criticism but I will cry.  
> (This is a joke. I will not actually cry.)


End file.
